


like a supernova

by reachedthebitterend



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Opera, F/F, M/M, More tags will be added as they become relevant, my attempts at being funny, the gang putting themselves in dangerous situations for money
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29109627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reachedthebitterend/pseuds/reachedthebitterend
Summary: Liz and Jenna and their merry band of scavengers, pick up a job with a ludicrous amount of credits, that takes them right into the Dark, and they end up finding something that is worth much more than any amount of credits they could be offered; a pissed off space mermaid, named Isobel.
Relationships: Background-Michael Guerin/Alex Manes, Background-Pre-Charlie Cameron/Kyle Valenti, Jenna Cameron/Liz Ortecho, Pre-Jenna Cameron/Isobel Evans/Liz Ortecho
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	1. the runaway princess bride

**Author's Note:**

> this is my femslash february project and i am very excited to share it with you all!! 😊😊😊

It takes Jenna two days to find Liz, not that Liz had been expecting anything less. Jenna was good at her job, but she also knew things about Liz that no one else at the King’s Palatial Estate would know.

Liz opens the door to her brand new hotel room to a livid Jenna wearing her all black uniform, which is patently unfair, because she looks unfairly hot, which is one of the many reasons that Liz had packed up her bags and had run away from the Palatial Estate the night before she was supposed to get married to the King.

She’d known that her mother would be extremely pissed off, just like how she knew that the King would send his Guard after her because if there was one thing that Liz had learned, it was that he was a possessive bastard, even if the items in his possession didn’t want to be in his possession.

And Liz has no interest in becoming just another one of his possessions, to be used and discarded at his convenience. She was a Princess, The Princess of the Roswellian Quadrant.

Noah may be King, but his kingdom is much smaller than the one she hails from.

She’d already sent Rosa an apology for the mess she was no doubt leaving behind, but Rosa had already told her, more than once, to follow her instincts.

She just sighs in Jenna’s face, and turns to head back inside, “I’ll go get my things.”

Jenna doesn’t say anything, so Liz grabs her bag and goes towards the bathroom, making noise like she’s packing stuff away, and then she closes the door, and acts fast knowing she probably only has a few minutes, max, until Jenna breaks the door down.

Liz pulls her backpack over her shoulders and thanks the stars that she hadn’t exactly unpacked anything before she’s pulling the shower curtains open and reaching for the small window that is labelled, EMERGENCY EXIT, Pull to Open.

It takes her a few minutes, and a bit of maneuvering to actually get out and get on the fire escape, and she’s feeling a little cranky and muttering to herself about how they should think about people with bigger butts when they create their emergency exits.

She rushes down the stairs, and knows from the shuttle schedule she’d glanced at earlier, that there are still a few hours before the next shuttle heading out of Antar Fifty-Two docks, but she’s sure she can get lost for a few hours at the terminal.

She jumps down the last rung, and turns around and almost bumps right into Jenna.

Liz bites back a curse as Jenna just looks at her pointedly, exasperated but with a little hint of amusement lurking in her eyes.

Liz would be laughing along, if Jenna wasn't here to drag her back into the King's clutches.

"I'm not going back," Liz says before Jenna can say anything. "So you can go tell the King that, because the only way you're getting me back into that place is unconscious."

"I d-" Jenna barely starts, looking alarmed, and taking a step closer, but Liz shakes her head, speaking over her.

"I tried, okay? I tried really hard, but Noah is an asshole and a tyrant, and marrying me will give him more authority than he'll ever know what to do with."

Jenna tries to speak again, but Liz doesn't want to hear it.

"And besides that, I'm just not in love with him. And I know that Royal Weddings are more about political advantage than actual love, but I want that, and I'm never going to get it from someone like King Noah. You can tell him I said that too."

Jenna gives her an exasperated look, but once Liz stops speaking, she just waits because she knows that Liz isn't quite done yet.

"You know what, don't tell him that. He'll see it more as a challenge than a statement of fact."

"I wasn't planning on telling him anything, actually."

Liz stops, just stops, her lips parted around the next set of words that she was about to say, and she feels almost like her heart stops painfully in her chest.

“What do you mean by that?” she asks, wondering if the King’s wounded pride called out a hit on her instead of just dragging her back. She wonders if the King knows that Rosa will raze his kingdom to the ground if he has her killed.

Jenna must read everything on her face, because she goes, slightly less severe, shoulders dropping and hands unclenching. “I’m not here to kill you either. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not mad at you.”

Liz raises her eyebrows in surprise, “Why on every planet in this starforsaken quadrant would you be mad at _me_?”

“You left-” Jenna starts taking a step towards Liz.

“Because I wasn’t going to marry that jerk! The only reason that I even stayed so long was because I promised Rosa that I would _try_ -”

“-without me!” Jenna keeps going.

“-and I did, but there was nothing likeable about- _wait_ , what did you just say?”

Jenna gives her a look, but instead of repeating herself, she just keeps talking.

“You have no idea where you’re going. You’ve barely been on this planet for two months, let alone the quadrant. You’ve only made it this far because Noah is under the impression that I’m searching for you to bring you back. Not to mention that you left behind the charging unit for your Camo Screen.”

Liz lifts her hands to her ear subconsciously, and then drops it again. She had planned to deal with that once her Camo Screen had died, but there was still enough battery until she at least got off the planet. It would last her longer, if she was just covering up the markings of Royalty, but she was also using it to cover up the physical characteristics that marked from the Roswellian Quadrant, the pointed ears and the longer fingers and the ridges across her nose.

“I wasn’t exactly thinking about all of that when I left the Estate,” Liz says, feeling defensive.

“Obviously,” Jenna says.

“But none of that explains why you’d be mad that I left without you,” Liz continues, making an attempt to turn the conversation around on Jenna.

Jenna gives her a look, the patented Liz Look, the one that says, _I have no idea why I put up with you_.

“What did you think would happen if you’d told me you were leaving?” Jenna asks instead of actually answering Liz’s question.

Liz makes a face at that, because while she does trust Jenna more than she trusts anyone in this Quadrant, if there is one thing that she’s learned about Jenna in the past couple of weeks is that she’s loyal, and her loyalties lie with the King.

“I thought that you’d immediately tell the King,” Liz admits when it seems like Jenna isn’t going to say or do anything until she’s answered.

Jenna gives her a look, like she can’t believe that Liz would say that.

“What else was I supposed to think?” Liz demands. “If there is one thing that I do know about you, it’s that you’re loyal, and your loyalties lie with the King, and I wasn’t about to ask you to go against your code of honor, so I left, before I changed my mind again.”

Jenna’s frown gets more pronounced, “What do you mean, again?”

Liz exhales roughly, “Do we have time for this? If you’re not going to tell the King where I am or drag me back to the Estate, what exactly are you going to do?”

Jenna gives her the patented Liz Look again, “I’m coming with you.”

Liz’s mouth drops open a little, and she blinks at Jenna blankly a few times.

“Or I should say, you’re coming with me. If you had just talked to me, I would’ve told you that I could get us off this planet, and quite possibly the quadrant before the King had even noticed that you’d gone missing.”

Liz just keeps blinking at Jenna, feeling stunned, and a little bit confused.

Jenna makes a low sound at the back of her throat, and then starts pacing back and forth, agitated. 

“I had it all planned out,” she starts. “An alibi to give to the King, and a ship ready to take us out, but you couldn’t wait just one more night?”

Liz gets knocked out of her daze at that, “No, I actually couldn’t! You have no idea what it was like! I wanted to do something good for my family, to actually have my mom look at me like she was proud of me, but I couldn’t stand it anymore!”

Jenna steps forward like she’s going to put her hands on Liz’s shoulders, but Liz takes a step back.

“I always knew that if I ever got married it would be more about the political advantage than about love, and I was totally fine with it. I could shove aside my disgust because I knew that I was honoring my family. But then-”

Liz trail off, and swallows hard, looking away from Jenna momentarily, but she knows that this might actually be the last time that she sees Jenna, so she pushes aside the feeling simmering in her chest, that tells her this is potentially a bad idea, and looks back to Jenna who is still watching her with a furrowed brow.

“But then _you_ happened,” Liz says firmly, and while Jenna processes that, Liz just keeps talking. “And you were so nice and lovely, and didn’t treat me any different because I was a Princess, and you’re brave and loyal and a skilled sword fighter, even though it’s a lost craft, and it was because of you that I was even starting to feel comfortable in that place, that maybe it could be home.”

Jenna’s eyes are wide and she looks like she’s frozen in shock, and somewhere deep in the pit of Liz’s stomach, she starts to feel sick, like maybe she’s made a huge mistake.

“I know it was you who made sure the cooks tried to make Roswellian cuisine when you saw how much I hated the food. I think that was the moment that I knew that I was falling in love with you.”

Jenna exhales softly, and a wondrous look comes over her face, “You are unbelievable.”

Liz looks away at that, feeling a little startled at the way Jenna is staring at her.

“And utterly ridiculous,” Jenna continues. “You don’t ever think things through before you do them, but you deal with the consequences with your head held high. You’re beautiful and brilliant and enchanting.”

Liz can’t not look at Jenna at that, feeling her heart racing in her chest, and her breathing speeds up as she realizes exactly what Jenna is saying.

“I fell in love with you the first time that I saw you, and the thought of having to spend even a single day living in a world where you were married to that jerk was so gut wrenching that I was making plans to leave before the wedding.”

This time when Jenna steps forward, Liz doesn’t back away.

She reaches out with her hands, and Liz reaches back, putting her hands in Jenna’s, and feeling like something clicks deep in her chest.

“I was going to confess my feelings to you and then ask you to run away with me, but like always, you beat me to the punch,” she continues, smoothing her thumbs across Liz’s knuckles.

Liz feels a fluttering feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she can’t help the smile that crosses her face, “You can still ask, anyway. I wouldn’t mind.”

Jenna smiles back at her, and takes another step forward, inclining her head just a little so that she’s still looking Liz in the eyes.

“Liz, I have loved you since I first saw you, would you leave this all behind and run away with me? It probably won’t be anything like you’re used to, but I promise to love you for the rest of our lives.”

Liz’s smile goes even wider, and instead of answering, she pushes herself up on her toes and presses her lips to Jenna’s.

Jenna goes still for one single second, and then she surges against Liz, letting go of her hands and cupping Liz’s jaw while Liz reaches up, wrapping her arms around Jenna’s neck.

Jenna kisses her with passion, just slightly on the edge of too desperate, and Liz feels the kiss crash through her like a wave, making it feel like even her blood cells were buzzing.

Liz would’ve happily stayed there, kissing Jenna until her feet got tired and her jaw ached, but then she feels the telltale signs that she’s about to be teleported, the way the air seemed to be getting warm, and how her skin felt tingly, and how it started getting difficult to breathe.

Jenna inhales sharply, her fingers digging into Liz’s skin. Liz tightens her arms around Jenna’s shoulders parting their mouths, but keeping their faces placed close together.

For a second she feels hazy and like she’s floating, and then she feels her knees buckles as they materialize at their destination, landing a bit too hard.

Liz shuts her eyes tightly and tries to breathe through the nausea. She hates teleports. They always make her feel like she’s about to throw up.

“Got ‘em,” a slightly buzzing and high pitched voice says, sounding both excited and relieved.

“Punch it, Guerin,” another voice, more throaty, and with a familiar Roswellian accent says, sounding more stressed than the first one.

“We just about ready, babe?” a deeper voice says, this one also with a familiar Roswellian accent.

“Punch it, Guerin,” a staticky deep voice says with a strange accent that Liz cannot place.

Before she can pull away from Jenna, the first voice speaks up, “You guys might want to hang on to something.”

Liz barely has time to realize that Jenna backed them up into a flat surface, keeping Liz pinned against it with her body, when the ship jumps into hyperspace.

If there is one thing that Liz hates even more than teleporting, it’s having to jump through hyperspace.

It feels like being stretched to thin, literally. Liz grits her teeth, seeing spots of colors explode behind her closed lids, and then just when it feels like it's too much, it stops.

Liz inhales sharply as Jenna pulls away from her and leans back against the wall, both of them panting hard.

Liz slides down on the wall until she's in sitting position, and she breathes in deeply, and tries to get her bearings back, not liking that she's somewhere that she doesn't know, with people that she doesn't.

She feels Jenna sliding down to sit beside her, and she feels marginally better.

"Sorry about that," the voice whose accent she couldn't recognize, speaks up without the staticky sound, and Liz looks up to see a guy with curly hair and a wide smile, standing right in front of her, wiping his hands on a dirty rag that he shoves in his back pocket.

"Hyperjumps on the COSMIC take some getting used to," he continues, and then he reaches forward with one hand.

"You must be Liz, Cam's talked a lot about you," he continues sounding a little bit like he's had one too many caffeine pods.

Liz shoots a confused look at Jenna, who raises an eyebrow back at her as though to say that she's the one responsible, so Liz assumes that Cam is the name these people call her by.

She turns back to the guy, who is still holding his hand out, his fingers oil stained, and there are overlapping scars across the backs of his knuckles, and a gold band around his ring finger.

Liz takes his hand gingerly, and the guy tugs her to her feet immediately, grinning as he lets go, and she sways a little.

"I'm Michael," he says and then turns towards where the pilot is getting up from his chair, probably after putting the ship on autopilot. "And this is my ex-boyfriend Alex!"

Alex walks forward into the light and Liz freezes immediately, feeling the air catch in her lungs as she sees the familiar markings on his face, glowing softly in amber, instead of blue like hers, and less intricate than her own, but that's to be expected since he's the son of a Duke and not the King.

But her surprise is less to do with Alex being another Roswellian Royal, and more about the fact that Alex was supposed to be dead.

"I told you," he says, looking at Michael with an expression that is a mixture of fondness and exasperation. "To stop introducing me like that."

"I'm his husband," he says and looks at Liz and he doesn't seem as surprised to see her as she is to see him. "And you have nothing to fear from us. We're all running from something."

"Excuse you," the first Roswellian accented voice she'd heard interrupts him, and she looks over to see a black girl with long curls tumbling down her back to her hips, held away from her face by a metallic headband. "I'm not running from anything. I was kidnapped."

"You can't keep saying that when you refuse to leave everytime we go planet side," Michael says, sounding droll.

"And the bounty on your head, is just a mild inconvenience that won't get you killed the second that you get back home?" Alex states at the same time, sounding deeply sarcastic.

"Is it really considered kidnapping if you hid in the cargo hold, and then tried to take over the ship, only to fail because this hunk of space junk only works properly for those two?” The first voice Liz had heard speaks up, and Liz’s eyes dart over to them, and she sees another woman, tall and blonde with several obvious cybernetic enhancements, and a resemblance to Jenna that’s undeniable.

“You did _not_ just call the ship that saves our lives on a daily basis a hunk of space junk,” Alex says, turning to face her, a frown on his face.

“It’s okay, baby,” Michael is saying at the same time as he pats the ship’s wall. “She didn’t mean that.”

Liz can’t help the startled laughter that falls out of her mouth. She laughs and laughs, and feels more light hearted than she has in months.

She sways a little, and Jenna is right there to catch her, and she looks up at her, and feels utterly safe. 

“I think that we should go find our room, and let these idiots squabble in peace,” Jenna says, and Liz just smiles and leans even heavier against her, letting her eyes fall shut, and feeling like there is nowhere else that she would rather be.

As soon as she thinks the words, there is a muffled boom and then the ship tilts to one side alarmingly, sending Jenna and Liz off balance, and they both tumble to the floor.

“See what happens when you’re mean to her,” Michael and Alex both say at the same time, and then move in unison, but away from each other. 

Michael hurries the few steps over to where there is a latch on the floor that he lifts and opens, and then disappears into what Liz assumes would be a tunnel that leads to the engine room, with a sound like he’s sliding down instead of actually taking the ladder. Alex moves towards the pilot seat he’d recently vacated, hands already on the console before he even sits down.

Both women move forward to help Jenna and Liz.

“I’m Maria, by the way,” the black girl says as she helps Liz up. Her Roswellian features are less defined than Liz’s or Alex’s, and something about the deliberateness of her words tells Liz that her accent is more than likely fabricated as well.

Before Liz can introduce herself, she lets Liz go and walks over to the console, sliding into the second chair in front of the console.

She can vaguely hear Alex and Michael talking what sounds like gibberish and it’s only when Maria snaps at them to speak in Galactic Standard, that they were speaking a different language.

“And this is Charlie,” Jenna says, catching Liz’s attention. Liz turns to face the last woman, and she’s looking at Liz speculatively, like she’s trying to figure her out by appearance alone.

Liz tries hard not to let her gaze linger on the metal plates on her face or the wires peeking out from the collar of her shirt, fused to the skin of her neck or the completely cybernetic right arm as she scrutinizes her right back.

“My sister,” Jenna finishes, and Liz stands a little straighter at that. Even though she had guessed that she must be her sister, it feels much more real and serious to get an actual confirmation.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Liz says, inclining her head slightly.

Charlie makes a clicking noise with her tongue, “We don’t have time right now, but once they stabilize this hunk of space junk, we are going to talk.”

Before Liz can ask her what exactly they have to talk about, Charlie is turning and heading the same way that Michael had gone, also sounding like she slid all the way down instead of using the ladder.

Liz hears Michael and Charlie start bickering, but it sounds more like friendly than an actual argument, and she turns to face Jenna, to find her looking back at her.

Liz raises an eyebrow, and Jenna just sighs heavily, “Charlie is my little sister. And she thinks that since I’ve been protecting her all of my life, she gets to interrogate anyone that I’m dating.”

“So we’re dating?” Liz asks, forgetting about the chaos surrounding them.

Jenna just smiles, “Yes, we are. If I didn’t make that clear.”

Liz hums noncommittally, and steps closer, slipping her hands into Jenna’s, “I don’t know. You might have, but I could use the reminder.”

Jenna smiles at that, and Liz leans up a little bit, eyes dropping to Jenna’s mouth, while Jenna leans down even closer, and then there is another muffled boom and the ships tilt to the other side.

“Guerin!” three voices yell out in unison.

“Sorry!” Michael yells back, not sounding sorry at all.

Jenna just shakes her head, and lets go of one of Liz’s hands, “Come on.”

Jenna pulls them out of the cockpit, through a door that slides open to reveal a dimly lit hallway, and Liz follows after her, holding on tightly to her hand.


	2. the higher the risk, the higher the reward

_Five Years Later_

Jenna stands in front of the jewelry stand, taking the opportunity to look at the rings while the merchant is busy with other customers. 

She’s not actually considering buying one of the rings, but she can’t help but seek them out curiously, a small part of her hoping that one day she’ll look and find the perfect ring.

Jenna has never considered herself the marrying type, but there was something about Liz that made her want that symbol of forever.

And she's not going to be content until she finds the perfect ring, something beautiful and elegant and everything that Liz deserves.

Her eyes catch on a simple silver ring, made up of three bands that melt into one towards the back of the ring, on each band there is a different colored stone, light green, aqua blue, and amber brown.

It’s beautiful, and she knows that Liz would like it, but she doesn’t reach out to pick it up.

Someone bumps into her from behind, but instead of pulling away, they wrap their arm around her shoulder and look to see what she's staring at.

Before Jenna thinks about elbowing the person, and making sure that they don't try to steal anything from the bag she's got strapped to her chest, she smells Maria's fruity shampoo, and can feel one of the three braids Maria had pulled her hair into this morning, tickling the side of her arm.

Maria makes a low scoffing sound, and then pulls away from Jenna, standing beside her, “You should just buy the ring already and put us all out of her misery.”

This time Jenna doesn’t stop the urge to elbow, but Maria just steps further back dodging her entirely, and then leans over the rings that Jenna had been watching. 

“Just take this one,” she says, and leans back holding the ring that Jenna had been staring at. “She’ll love anything as long as it’s coming from you. Even if it’s made out of flexoplast.”

Jenna doesn’t have the words to tell her that while objectively she knows that, she can’t shake the feeling in the pit of her stomach that everything has to be absolutely perfect.

She just shakes her head, and sets one hand over the strap keeping her bag on her chest, and turns around.

“Come on, we need to get to the Buffy before Long decides to close down shop.”

She starts walking through the crowded marketsat, a satellite that is mostly just several platforms tied together by several broken down ships, orbiting slowly through space, and where people like them usually find buyers for things they’ve scavenged, or new jobs.

Jenna is hoping that Long actually has something new for them, something with a more substantial reward than fifty thousand credits, because while it was a substantial amount of money, after they split it five ways and then factored in the cost of maintaining the ship, Jenna and Liz usually found themselves with just a couple of hundred credits to their name.

It was enough for them to get by, given that they spent most of their time surrounded by five other people, and more often than not pooled their resources together.

Jenna tries to speed her steps, but the marketsat is especially full today.

She can hear Maria bumping into people as she walks behind her, saying sorry, and probably patting people in reassurance and actually stealing their credit chips or whatever valuable they may have.

Jenna spots Long’s ship in the spot that it usually is, looking like it can barely make the trip back on planet. It's an ancient monstrosity that needs at least four different pilots and is even older than the COSMIC.

She slows to a stop right in front of the open cargo hold, and knocks against the side, the sound of her fist against the metal loud even in the bustling marketsat.

His head pops up from behind a table stacked full of different ship parts, which are covered in used stardust that he seemed to be collecting.

"If it isn't Number One," he says, grinning too wide, eyes too wide, as he gets to his feet and walks forward.

He's dressed in what looks like multiple dusty black robes, cinched at his hips with a blaster holster, and his hair like always, is slicked back and oily, the blue color only coming through when he steps into the light coming from the artificial star floating in the center of the marketsat, which is the only thing that is keeping the satellite afloat.

He looks around, smile shrinking when he spots Maria and realizes that it's just the two of them.

"Where is the Captain?" He asks, and the way his voice goes deep and slick, makes Jenna's skin crawl. She has no idea how Alex actually deals with actually getting hit on by this guy.

"Not here," Jenna says, wanting to keep the conversation as professional as possible, but Long speaks before she can say anything else.

"Oh that's too bad, I was going to ask him if he wanted to go to the Juniper Festival with me."

"Alex wouldn't be interested in that," Maria says, which they all know is a lie since Alex and Michael always go to the Juniper Festival if they can, since it's one of the Roswellian Events that has made it out of the Quadrant. "And besides, he's married."

Long gives Maria a look like that doesn't matter to him, and Jenna makes another face, before clearing her throat.

"Enough, I have the piece your client was looking for," Jenna says, unzipping her bag, and pulling out a small silver device, that didn't do anything no matter what they did to it.

Long turns to face her and smiles, this smile somehow brighter and more fake than the one he'd given when he’d thought Alex was with her.

“Just in time, like always, Number One,” he tells her and searches through his pockets until he pulls out a blue credit chip.

Maria takes the chip while Jenna hands over the merchandise.

Jenna waits for Long to go put the item away before she speaks up, “Got any other jobs lined up. Maybe something that’s a little more than a hundred thousand.”

Long tilts his head as he looks at her, a look on his face like he can see inside of her head, which makes her feel uncomfortable enough that she moves a little closer to Maria, who moves closer to her as well, one of her braids brushing against Jenna’s arm.

“I got something that everyone keeps passing up, even though it’s a lucrative amount of credits,” he says, turning around and heading towards another table, this one stacked with holopads and a terminal.

Jenna and Maria share a look, and then look back at Long, “How much are we talking about?”

Long returns carrying a holopad with a chip card plugged in. The chip card makes a thrilling sound, to confirm that the file has been transferred.

He looks up at them, and gives them a significant look before he says, “Five billion credits.”

Jenna’s eyes widen and Maria makes a small sound.

“I think I just came,” she says, sounding breathless.

Jenna would roll her eyes at that, but she feels pretty much the same. With five billion credits, they’d be set for life.

“What’s the catch?” Jenna asks, clearing her throat when she hears how hoarse she sounds.

“The item my client wants is in an old ambassador ship with extreme state of the art security that is still active even if there is no one on the ship, and it’s difficult to break into,” he says, not looking up at them, as he pulls out the chip card and holds it out towards them.

“That’s not all of it,” Jenna says before Maria can grab the chip card. “What’s the _real_ catch?”

Long inhales deeply, and looks at her, “This is exactly where I lose everyone.”

Jenna just gives him a pointed look back.

He sighs and lets his hand drop, still holding the chip card.

“The ship is stranded in The Dark.”

Of course it is, Jenna thinks.

She looks back to Maria, who looks back at her.

“We’ll have to discuss it with the team,” she says looking back at Long, whose eyebrows shoot up on his face. “But we’ll let you know.”

She holds her hand out, and swallows hard when Long places the chip card in her hand, and it feels heavier than anything she’s ever held.

-

“Absolutely not,” Alex says as soon as the words, The Dark are out of Jenna’s mouth.

And the thing is that it’s not like Jenna can blame him. 

The Dark is the last place you’d want to get stuck in. An endless expanse of darkness, not a single star, artificial or otherwise in sight, not a single living planet or passing moon that is right on the edge of the galaxy. It’s a darkness so absolute, that some say it feels like it’s alive, just waiting to devour you.

Jenna has never been to The Dark, and while she does know how Alex feels about it, the fact remains-

“Five billion credits,” Maria says, and everyone seems to straighten up a bit more at that.

“Bullshit,” Alex says.

Maria just holds out the chip card, but before Alex can grab it, Charlie takes it from her.

She places the small silver square in the middle of her hand, staring at it intently, the pupil of her right eye enlarging and glowing a soft blue as she scans the chip card.

She hums thoughtfully for a second and then tosses the chip card to Alex, who catches it and turns around, heading towards his seat to grab his holopad out of the side pouch.

He leans back against the back of his seat, and looks over to Michael while he’s sliding the chip card into the reader.

The holopad makes a questioning chirping noise, and Alex looks down, sliding his fingers across the screen.

He frowns as the information is pulled up and lifts the holopad closer to his face.

Jenna’s eyes slide away from him and over to where Michael is leaning back against the wall, arms folded across his chest, one of his hands up by his face, his thumbnail trapped between his teeth as he stares over at Alex.

There is a worried crease in his brow, and not for the first time, Jenna wonders what’s the big secret that he and Alex are hiding.

It’s almost impossible to keep secrets when you live like they do, and still they have all managed to do it.

The rest of the crew doesn’t know who Liz actually really is, besides Alex, which is the only reason that Jenna is respectful over his and Michael’s secret, because he’s kept it to himself that Liz is actually the missing Princess. Charlie thinks that Liz is someone who worked at the Palatial Estate, but that’s because that’s what Jenna’s led everyone to believe.

No one, not even Charlie who has been the one with them the longest, knows what secret Alex and Michael are keeping. The clues all point to it being related to whatever species Michael is. They have all found them napping right next to the engine more than once, Alex only protected from the intense heat by a blanket he wears that stays cold.

No one knows where Maria goes when she leaves at the beginning of every lunar cycle, only that every time she comes back she seems like she’s let go of one burden only to pick up another.

And then there is Kyle, who joined the crew the year after she and Liz had. 

Alex had gotten sick during a job, and Michael had disappeared, and they had no idea what to do, until Michael had returned with Kyle in tow. It had been four years, but Kyle was a very private person. Jenna wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that he was also secretly the child of a royal.

Charlie is the only one among them that isn’t keeping a secret, or if she is, then Jenna doesn’t know what it could possibly be.

The point is that it’s the only reason that she hasn’t pushed, that they’re all keeping secrets.

Jenna’s eyes move to Liz, who turns to look at her at the same time.

Liz raises an eyebrow at her, asking her if she’s sure about this, and Jenna just tilts her chin downwards in a nod.

She’s as sure as she can be. While she enjoys spending time with the people that they’ve surrounded themselves with, sometimes it got to be too much, and she thinks that they all could use a vacation from each other.

And if she was being honest, she wanted to spend a few weeks alone with Liz. They haven’t really been alone since they’d gotten together, and Jenna just wanted a few weeks where they could relax without having to worry that the others were getting into trouble because they took jobs without them.

Alex makes a low sound, but when he lowers the holopad away from his face, his frown is even more pronounced.

Alex looks up at them, opening his mouth to speak, but Michael talks before he can.

“Alex,” he says, and then he starts speaking in that weird mix of different languages that they slip into when they don’t want anyone to know what they’re saying.

After five years, Jenna can understand certain words in their individual context, but not enough to actually understand what they’re saying.

She turns her gaze over to Kyle, who seems to be having a conversation with Liz, using only their eyebrows. 

He rolls his eyes, looking away from Liz and straight to Jenna.

She raises an eyebrow expectantly.

Kyle just sighs, "The money is compelling, but a trip into The Dark isn't worth the possible casualties. They always say you never come back out of The Dark with as many people as you went in with."

"Superstitious nonsense that I really thought you as a man of science wouldn't subscribe to," Charlie says teasingly, and Kyle goes tellingly pink in the cheeks, and this is the first time that Jenna has ever seen this happening.

She narrows her eyes at Kyle, but before anyone can say anything else, Alex speaks, turning away from Michael and addressing the room at large.

"Okay," he says, and Jenna turns to face him, and sees how everyone does as well, almost synchronized. "If we're doing this, then we're negotiating. We'll need at least a third of the reward, upfront. In order to get the COSMIC in proper fighting shape. I'm also going to need the schematics of the ship in question and which version of the security it has, which means that I'm probably going to have to talk to Forrest in person."

He grimaces a little bit, but it looks more resigned than disgusted.

"I'm going with you," Michael says, at the same time that Kyle says, "One of us should go with you."

Michael and Kyle look at each other and then make identical disgusted faces at each other.

Jenna rolls her eyes and turns towards Liz, wanting to ask her what she really thinks about this job in private, when Maria stops her, wrapping her fingers around Jenna’s wrist and then pressing something small and metal into the palm of her hand.

“Just ask her already,” Maria says in a low voice before she pushes away from Jenna and walks out of the cockpit.

Liz raises an eyebrow at the interaction, and Jenna just shrugs, curling her fingers around the ring in her hand already knowing it’s the one that Maria had picked up from the jewelry stand.

“Come on,” she says, moving her hands to her back pockets, to try and slide the ring out of sight as discreetly as possible.

“Let’s go check out the fruit stand, I heard there was supposed to be a shipment of fruits from the Southern Roswellian Quadrant.”

Liz’s eyes light up, and she reaches out and grabs Jenna’s hand and leads the way out of the ship.

They get back to the ship several hours later, holding bags of fruit and other food supplies, including toiletries they’ve run out of since Liz’s hair smelled like Maria’s fruity shampoo.

They walk into the communal area which is just a twenty square foot space, where one side is taken up by the kitchen, divided by a bar they use as a dining/planning table surrounded by several stools and more comfortable cushioned chairs, and the other side was a wall bench couch and two armchairs surrounding a low coffee table, covered in old coffee mugs that no one has taken to the kitchen from earlier that day, and Alex is sitting down on one side of the coffee table, in front of Michael who is sitting on the armchair and wincing slightly at whatever Alex was doing to his hand.

“Don’t you think that Kyle-” Michael starts, and then shuts up at the glare that Alex sends him.

“Let me guess,” Jenna says as Liz grabs the bags from her hands and walks the rest of the way towards the kitchen. “You punched Long in the face after he said something particularly distasteful to Alex?”

Michael makes a fake laughing face towards Jenna, while Alex wraps the bandages around his knuckles so tightly that Jenna doubts he’ll be able to move his hand.

“The good news is that we got our advance on the reward and have all the things I need to make a plan,” Alex says as he packs up the first aid kit and then gets to his feet, tucking the box beneath one arm.

“The bad news is that now we have a time limit, and will have to pay back three-quarters of the advance if we don’t find the item that they’re looking for, which by the way we don’t have an accurate description on.”

“Yeah, the smug little shit only says that we’ll know the treasure when we see it because it will be worth the cost,” Michael says making a face as he clenches and unclenches his hand.

“Well,” Jenna says, looking from Michael to Liz and to Alex’s retreating back. “I guess we’ll see when we get there.”

-

It takes them two days to upgrade the ship. Fitting it with a state of the art laser canon, and over the top bright as anything high beams, and fixing her up just enough that the trip back and forth shouldn’t cause any problems.

She makes sure that everyone gets into their uniforms, since the COSMIC’s ultimate disguise was that of a garbage disposal, just in case someone questioned what they were doing so close to the border.

The uniforms were all black with blue stripes that reflected brightly in the dark.

Jenna is fiddling with the sleeves of her suit, watching as Maria braids Liz’s hair and then tucks it into a bun at the back of her neck, half listening to Charlie and Michael’s conversation that filters through the speaker from the engine room.

They’re travelling as fast as possible without actually jumping into hyperspace, and the ride is much smoother than it usually is thanks to the upgrades, which means that Kyle is sitting in Maria’s co-pilot seat instead of hiding in his medbay.

They were all looking out of the transparisteel windows as it became more and more obvious that they were heading into The Dark.

Jenna had never realized exactly how bright the universe was, how the edges of the dark skies were always tinted golden with the artificial light.

The further they move away from the border the darker the sky seems to get. Jenna hears Michael and Charlie crawl up from the engine, but other than that, total silence falls across the room as they all seem to realize just how vast is the space that they have to search in.

Alex switches the high beams on, and it barely makes a difference.

“I think we’re going to need to set up the tracker after all,” Jenna says after a few minutes of silence.

Alex says something under his breath that makes Michael snort in laughter, before he turns around and heads to the other side of the cockpit where there is a wall covered with monitors and dials.

Jenna lets him do what he needs to do, and she walks over to where Alex has slowed their speed in order to make sure that he’s not going to crash into anything, given that they can only see a couple of feet in front of them.

“Explain to me about the laser grid again,” Jenna asks, and Alex doesn’t exactly sigh, but she can tell that he wants to.

They’ve gone over this twenty times already, but Jenna is the one who is going to be going out there, and make her way through the laser grid maze in order to give Alex access to the actual ship.

So she thinks that she deserves as many times as she wants to go over the plan.

Just because she doesn’t actively believe that Light Eaters exist doesn’t mean that she’s not terrified that one is going to be out there, waiting for her to get out of the ship.

Alex pats the side of the counsel in a signal that has Maria bullying Kyle out of her chair, and then he turns towards Jenna, taking his holopad out of the pouch beside his chair and unlocking the screen.

"The grid is made up of four levels, each one changing shape every couple of minutes. There are just a few seconds when the grid is down between each change."

He pulls up the information, and then taps the screen and out pops a miniature model of the ship, which they got as close to scale as they possibly could.

He taps against the screen again and a laser grid forms around the ship, surrounding it like a round overlapping forcefield, with four different levels.

“Once we’re closer, I’ll be able to actually put the grid into the AI program that Michael created and go through all the random sequences the lasers are on, and I’ll be able to guide you through them. Charlie will be down in the brand new bucket seat, in charge of the laser canon, just in case. Michael will be at the teleport with your exact coordinates at any time to bring you back immediately, and Maria is also suited up to go just in case you can't go back out."

Jenna breathes in deeply and nods her head slowly. She opens her mouth to ask him about something else when she feels a hand sliding into hers and she looks over to Liz, who tugs her away from Alex's side.

"Let him fly his ship," she says and tugs Jenna over to where she'd been sitting down with Maria. The trio of seats that are usually folded to the wall, and only used when there is really bad turbulence, or what they consider really bad turbulence, which only happens when the ship is caught up in something's gravity and just free falling, which doesn't happen a lot, but it has happened more times than Jenna would like.

Liz sits down and drags her down with her, and she leans back against the wall, and hums low in the back of her throat, playing with Jenna's fingers, and wordlessly telling her to relax.

Jenna just leans back next to her and tries to synchronize their breathing until she feels as relaxed as she can be.

She's still a little bit worried, but she has trust in herself and she has trust in her abilities, and even more, she has trust in her team.

She and Alex made the plans, and they covered every angle they could possibly think off. The plans were solid.

Now all that was left was to find the ship.

-

It takes them the equivalent of three days to actually find the ship. By then the total darkness seems to be getting to Michael more than the rest of them.

He's snappy and moody, and not even Alex seems to be an exception. The only time he seems normal is when he's sleeping right next to the hot engine, soaking up the tiny rays of light leaking through the casing where the artificial stardust is burnt up for fuel.

Jenna has asked Alex twice what's wrong, and offered to help more times than she can count, but Alex just refuses to talk about it, only saying that if they want to find the ship, then they're just going to have to deal with it.

The problem is that Alex is the only one who actually knows why Michael is acting the way that he is. The rest of them are about ready to toss him out through the garbage chute.

It's that tension that drives everyone else out of the engine room while Alex takes his break with Michael. Maria is also sleeping in her room, the door triple locked so that no one can enter and Charlie is sleeping in Liz and Jenna's room since usually she shares the room with Maria.

Liz fell asleep in the medbay, which is also Kyle's room, and Jenna stayed in the cockpit with Kyle, who was sitting down by the console, reading a book on Alex's holopad, while keeping an eye on the radar that beeps occasionally.

Jenna is stretched out on the seats, arms folded beneath her head as she stares blankly at the ceiling. She’s dressed up with her propulsion boots and the suit that will keep her alive out in space. The only thing missing is the helmet that she’s been keeping, hung up right next to the teleporter for when the time comes.

She's been keeping her eyes more closed than open, and is thinking that she could probably fall asleep right there when the proximity alarm goes off, loud and insistent.

Alex had set up the autopilot to dodge anything small since the proximity alarms had been going off every couple of hours, but the alarm sounding off meant that they'd found something big, something big enough to be a ship, to be their ship.

Jenna gets up almost immediately, her feet making a dull thud against the metallic floor, but somehow, Alex still manages to beat her to the console.

He’s sweaty, his hair sticking up in wet clumps and stripped down to the waist, his uniform jumper pulled up over his hips with the sleeves tied at his waist, his tank top is soaked and there are goosebumps across his shoulders and down his arms from the extreme change in temperature from the engine to the cockpit.

Kyle wordlessly gets out of the chair as Alex stops beside him, and Jenna leans against the back of the chair, looking out through the screen, even though she can’t make anything out but the endless darkness eating at the light shining from the high beams.

Alex sits down and pushes buttons, quieting the alarm, while Michael crawls out of the hole in the ground at the same time that the doors swish open.

Jenna’s eyes dart over to the door, and she sees Liz and Charlie walking through. The door closes and then opens again to let Maria in.

“What’s going on?” she asks, sitting down next to Alex, and pulling up her own screens. “I thought we fixed the alarm situation.”

“We did,” Charlie is the one to answer, leaning on Maria’s chair, and blinking sleepily, like it’s taking her longer to boot up than usual.

“Which means, this could be what we’re looking for,” Alex says, shivering slightly.

Michael drapes his flannel shirt over Alex’s shoulders, and Alex tugs it on wordlessly.

“Could be, being the keywords there,” Michael says, sounding tired. Jenna darts her eyes over to him, and finds him leaning back against the wall, eyes closed.

“I’m going to send the drone out,” Alex says in response to that, and he presses a couple of more buttons and Jenna hears the click as one of the drones detaches itself from where they’re kept at the front, right outside of the ship for easy access.

Everyone stares as the small sphere flies out in front of them, and then disappears into the darkness, after a few minutes, there is a rapid beeping sound as the drone begins to send information, and Alex presses a button, and then the rapid beeping sound stops and out in front of them there is what looks like a small explosion, quickly smothered away by the dark, but whatever the drone did, lights up the laser grid around the ship.

Alex presses a few buttons and the bright high beams turn off, making the grid shine brighter.

It’s still a couple of miles in front of them, but they’re close enough that the grid pulsing slightly with red light is almost completely visible.

Just like in Alex’s diagram, it surrounds the entire ship.

The rapid beeping sounds again, and this time Alex makes a small triumphant sound.

“Willow is uploading the laser grid information now,” he says, and turns to look at Jenna. “I’ll move us as close as possible, but then it’s your turn.”

Jenna just nods her head once, and then turns to the teleport pad, where Michael is already standing at the controls.

Charlie squeezes her arm as she passes her and heads down into the engine room, which will lead her to the hall that will lead her lower into the bucket seat where they have their brand new laser canon.

She sees Kyle leaning over Maria’s chair, looking out of the screen, asking questions in a low voice while Alex uses the propulsion system to move them closer.

She looks to Liz who takes that as her cue to step closer, and ignores Michael who very obviously pretends that he’s not there to give them the semblance of privacy.

“I don’t like this,” Liz says in a low voice, as she moves closer. “But you knew that already.”

“Just,” she says, stopping in front of Jenna and reaching for her hands to tangle their fingers together. “Be careful. I know that you don’t believe in them, but keep your eyes peeled for the Light Eaters, because science says they do exist.”

Jenna nods her head, “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

The words don’t seem to alleviate any of Liz’s worries, and Jenna knows exactly how she feels. She hates it the times when Liz is the one putting herself in danger to complete a job, but it’s something that comes with the territory given their daily lives.

She just used her hold on Liz’s hands to tug her in closer, and Liz tilts her face upwards.

Jenna places a soft kiss to her mouth, and then drops her forehead to hers, their noses brushing slightly as she breathes in.

She closes her eyes, and Liz untangles their fingers to press her hands against Jenna’s shoulders.

They stay like that for a few minutes, before Jenna can feel the ship stopping completely, meaning that they’re close enough to the ship.

Jenna separates from Liz, and looks over to where Kyle is looking at them with that ridiculous soft expression he always wears whenever one of them does something that reminds him of his parents, while Maria is wrinkling her nose at them, since she detests public displays of affection and vulnerability.

Jenna just turns away from them, lifting her hands to squeeze Liz’s that are still on her chest, before she drops them, patting her pockets to make sure that she has the small disc shaped device that she needs to attach to the ship.

Liz reaches to the side, and picks up her helmet, placing it over Jenna’s head, and clicking it into place. She puts her hand on Jenna’s helmet, and presses the buttons on the side, turning on her mic and bringing up the screen that tells her how much oxygen she’s got left, and how much battery the boots have. She clears that all away with a thought, and smiles when Liz lifts herself up to her toes and places a kiss right against the glass.

Jenna turns towards Michael, who has moved away from the controls and presses his closed fist to his chest, and inclines his head slightly.

“Let the stars guide your way, and may you never get lost in the darkness,” Michael says, like he always does when any one of them is about to do something potentially life threatening, but somehow this time it seems like something more, probably because she’s actually going into The Dark.

Jenna just places her hand on her chest and bows her head, right back at him, and then she steps on to the teleporter pad.

“Ready when you are,” she says, and hears her voice echoing slightly when it comes out through the speakers on the console.

Alex just makes a hand symbol for okay, and she hears his voice muffled and then Michael is moving, fingers inputting the coordinates and Jenna inhales sharply when she can feel the teleporter starting up.

“Ready to teleport,” Alex’s voice says in her ear, and she can hear the echo. “In five, four, three, two-”

The teleport warms up fast, and one second she’s standing there, looking to Liz who blows her a kiss and sends her a thumbs up, and the next she’s floating outside of the ship, several feet away from the first layer of the laser grid.

Jenna lets herself float for a little bit, trying to orient herself, and adjust her breathing.

She shakes her head a little, and presses her heels together, testing out the propulsion and breathing out in relief when it pushes her upwards a little bit.

“Okay,” she says, speaking to the others, and pulling up the screen that shows her how far away she is from everything. “I am eleven feet away from the first layer.”

“You need to get closer, but don’t touch it,” Alex’s voice sounds in her ear, and Jenna tries very hard not to roll her eyes. “You still have forty-five seconds until the next change. I’ll give you a countdown at five.”

Jenna nods her head, but doesn’t physically respond, pushing herself closer to the grid carefully.

She gets as close enough to the grid as she can, and then stops, letting herself float carefully in place.

The silence is almost deafening out here. She can’t even hear the background noises from the COSMIC, since Alex has to press down on a button in order to speak to her, but at the moment all she can hear is her own breathing, and the dull thudding of her heartbeat.

She breathes in and out carefully, trying not to psyche herself out, but she feels a prickle against the back of her neck, and a shiver going down her back and arms, making her feel like someone is watching her.

But she knows that her team is watching her, so she tries to push the feeling away.

“Okay,” Alex says, making her jump a little. “Countdown begins. Five, four, three, two, one.”

The first laser grid flickers and then it’s gone, the same thing happens to the next one, and then the next, almost like a domino effect. 

Jenna is surprised but she moves automatically, pushing herself forward through the space and stopping right when the grid flickers back to life behind her and then right in front of her.

Well, Jenna thinks as she tries not to move too much or risk pushing herself too close to either side, this might be easier than she’d thought.

It’s then of course that she feels something like a rope, wrapping around her ankle.

“G-” she starts to say, and then the words are stolen from her in a scream as she’s being tugged downwards.

Jenna can vaguely hear the others panicking in her ear, but she activates her boots and hears an agonizing shriek, but she’s too busy kicking away from whatever grabbed her, pushing herself upwards and to the side to avoid hitting the laser grid.

She’s not sure what will happen if she crosses the laser grid, but she’s not prepared to find out.

She turns around, trying to see if she can tell what was it that grabbed her, and she can’t see anything.

Before she can speak she hears Charlie’s voice in her ear, “I don’t care! I’m firing!”

And then Jenna hears the whoosh sound of the laser cannon firing up and her eyes widen as the blast hits something dark and massive.

The creature makes another enraged sound, and all Jenna can do is float there as the light from the blast hits the creature and lights it up.

It’s a massive thing, that looks like it’s made from the exact darkness that takes up The Dark, with smoke like tendrils of tentacles, that seem to be insubstantial, but she’d felt it wrap around her ankle.

“Go or stay?” Alex’s voice crackles in her ear. “You have eight seconds before the next switch.”

Jenna pushes herself further away from the creature trying to decide, while the creature seems to be moving forward.

There is another fire from the laser canon, which pushes the creature back since it doesn’t seem to do anything else to harm it.

“Three, two, one,” Alex is counting down, and Jenna is moving before the grid even flickers in front of her.

She pushes herself and just barely manages to pass through the next two, before the grid pops back up.

One more to go, she thinks and then speaks, “How much longer until the next one?”

“Four minutes and twenty-six seconds,” Alex says, sounding stressed out. “I think that’s a Light Eater.”

“You think?!” Comes Liz’s voice, sounding too close to the speaker. “You need to get her out of there now!”

Jenna turns around, and sees that the creature has no problem getting through the grid without getting hurt and without the grid registering it as a life form.

Charlie shoots at it again, and the creature moves away from the light as it pushes it back.

“I think it doesn’t like the light,” Jenna says.

The words are barely out of her mouth before the COSMIC’s high beams are turning on, and hitting Jenna directly, bright enough that she can barely see the laser grid anymore.

The creature roars, and hides away from the light, but Jenna doesn’t think that it’s actually going to be that easy, not with the fact that the creature probably doesn’t get much to eat out here.

She’s proven right, when she turns to the ship, and she can see the creature right at the edges where the light hits.

“It’s coming for you,” she says.

“We can handle it,” Maria’s voice sounds out.

“Three minutes,” Alex says, and Jenna just nods her head.

She watches as Charlie shoots at the creature a couple of more times, before it seems to disappear.

“One minute,” Alex says in her ear, and Jenna reaches down to her pocket to make sure that she still has the device.

She breathes out gratefully as she touches the disc, and then just concentrates on moving forward when the time comes.

The minute seems to go on forever, but when the time comes, Jenna waits for Alex’s countdown and then she propels herself forward, pushing the boots to the highest speed.

Right when she’s about to reach the ship, she sees the creature again, rising up from beneath her.

She ignores it, hearing the laser cannon going off and a screech louder than the ones before, as she hits the side of the ship, and takes the device out of her pocket.

Luck is on her side since she managed to get to one of the ship’s doors, a pad right next to it, the screen blinking that the ship is armed.

Jenna places the device right on top of it, and it attaches immediately.

“Done,” she says.

“Receiving!” Alex calls back.

And then she feels the tingly feeling of the teleport starting, and she lets herself fall back against the ship in relief, forgetting about the creature at all, until she lands back in the ship.

She feels her legs give out beneath her, and she lets herself fall to the floor.

Liz is there to catch her and push her back against the wall, keeping her steady, until she’s able to stand on her own again.

She feels Liz’s hands all over, checking her over, and tugging the helmet over her head, and against her suit.

“Hey,” she says, and Liz gives her a wide eyed, panicked look, like she can’t believe that’s all Jenna is going to say.

“I’m okay,” she tells her, and Liz just glares.

“That thing almost killed you,” Liz states like Jenna wasn’t out there with the creature.

“I know,” Jenna says, and grabs Liz’s hands before she can say anything else. “But I’m okay. I survived. We had a plan in place just in case anything attacked, and it worked.”

Liz doesn’t look reassured, and Jenna knows she won’t be until they’re out of The Dark, and not in danger.

“And now all we have to do is wait for Alex to do his thing and-”

“That was much easier than I thought it was going to be,” Alex’s voice interrupts her, and Jenna looks to him, and then pushes away from the wall, taking Liz with her as they look out of the view screen.

The laser grid flickers twice before it falls away completely, and then she can see the transparisteel windows light up as the lights turn on inside of the ship.

Jenna looks around in the darkness, trying to see if she can spot the creature again.

“Where is the creature?” she asks.

“The Light Eater ran away after the last hit,” Maria says as she pats Jenna on the shoulder on her way back to her seat. “But we should get this done before it comes back.”

It takes much less time for Alex to fly the COSMIC close enough so that they can attach the rig and pull up right beside the ship, so that once they teleport inside they’d be able to keep the ships close enough to each other to teleport back.

“Everything clear down here,” Charlie says, and there are the sounds of her getting more comfortable in her seat, since she’s going to be staying on the COSMIC with Michael and Kyle while the rest of them go into the ship.

“Alright,” Alex says, as he gets up and turns to Kyle who’s been hovering over his seat. “She’s in idle mode. But you already know what to do to detach if you need to.”

Kyle nods his head and takes over the pilot seat.

Jenna turns to Liz, who squeezes her hand before she lets it go.

They walk over to the teleporter, where Maria is already standing.

Alex stops next to Michael, to give him the coordinates to teleport them inside of the ship in a big enough space, and Michael doesn’t look happy at all about being left behind while Alex goes.

They speak to each other in a low voice, and then Michael presses a hand to Alex’s chest, and bows his head, and Alex matches his movements, leaning down until their foreheads touch gently.

Jenna can see their lips moving, but she doesn’t hear what they say, and Alex pulls away after a second, and walks decidedly to the teleport, a look in his eyes like he wants to get this over and done with.

Once the four of them are situated as well as they can on the small teleport pad, Michael inputs the numbers, and then counts down.

Just like before, the last thing she hears is Michael’s voice saying two, before the teleport starts up and takes them away.

They land in a hallway, just big enough for the four of them.

Maria and Alex land just fine, but Jenna holds on to Liz and pulls her close, so that she doesn’t fall to the floor, while she groans and lifts a hand to her head.

“Why couldn’t we just do this the old fashioned way?” Liz asks, pushing her face into Jenna’s shoulder and breathing in deeply.

“Timing,” Maria and Alex say at the same time.

“We already attracted one Light Eater, and I think that means we were lucky not to attract any before,” Maria continues. “So we’re going to have to split up to search the ship.”

“There are six levels,” Alex says, picking up right when Maria stops speaking. “We can take two each, and Jenna and Liz can take the bottom two since they’re the ones with the most rooms, so having two people check will be fine. I’ll take the middle two, and you take the top two.”

Jenna doesn’t hear Maria say anything, but she hears her boots clanging against the metallic floor as she walks away, probably to find a way to the top.

Alex looks to Jenna who just nods her head in agreement, “Make contact if you find what we’re looking for. This is the fifth level.”

He taps something on his wristband and a holographic screen pops up, whizzing through what looks like blueprints of the ship before it shows them as three blipping dots, Maria’s dot looks to be climbing up somehow.

“See you soon,” Alex says, and then he moves, following the map he has.

Liz pulls away from Jenna, and breathes in deeply once before she also taps her wristband, “Let’s go.”

They go through the fifth level pretty quickly, considering that it seems to be the crew’s quarters, but most of the rooms were completely empty, and the ones that weren’t, weren’t crowded with personal items.

Some rooms had mounds of what looked like ashes, and Liz stops to collect several samples, until Jenna reminds her that they’re on a time crunch.

“First level cleared,” Maria’s voice sounds out from the wristband as they head down to the last level.

“Third level cleared,” Alex says right after her.

“Fifth level cleared,” Liz says, and then they’re down on the sixth level.

Jenna shivers as the temperature seems to drop extremely.

This time it doesn’t take them long at all to find a room with promise.

There is only one door that is open when they look down the hall at the left, and Jenna and Liz share a look before they both walk towards it.

Jenna pushes the door open wider and they both peer inside of the room cautiously.

It’s very obviously a rigged up brig, with a cell in one corner, and what looks like an autopsy table.

There are more mounds of ashes inside, but as the light from the hallway shines further into the room, something sparkles, the glare making her shut her eyes momentarily.

“Oh,” Liz breathes, reverently, and almost giddy. “That’s the Heart of a Star.”

Jenna blinks her eyes open, and looks to where Liz is watching, and feels the air catch in her chest at the sight.

The Heart of a Star is a massive jewel that is almost completely clear, except for right in the middle where there is always a burst of color, that when you shine a light through the jewel it throws the colors against whatever flat surface. 

The jewel could be crushed down into stardust to use for fuel, and it lasts longer than artificial or even regular stardust.

It could potentially be worth the billions of credits someone is willing to pay for it.

“Found it,” she says into her wristband as Liz steps forward into the room.

“Heading to you,” Alex says, and Maria doesn’t answer, but Jenna knows that she’s also on her way.

Jenna looks around the room, while Liz pulls out a specimen bag from her pocket to put the jewel inside.

She hears the clatter as Alex’s heavier than Maria’s footsteps run down the hall just when she sees something move in the darkness of the cage.

She switches the light on her wristband, and shines it inside of the cage, hoping that there isn’t a Light Eater in there since they aren’t armed, and she stops.

She feels Alex bumping into her, and hears his sharp intake of breath as he sees what she’s staring at.

In the corner of the cage, chained to the floor by a laser chain, connected to the belt tied around it’s waist is a Nebulaei. 

More commonly known as a space mermaid, it’s colors are faded and dull, and it looks emaciated, wrist bones poking out too sharply. Jenna sees a splash of what looks like long dirty blonde hair, and then sees what caught her attention as it breathes, and the spines on her back lift up a little bit.

It’s still alive, she thinks distantly, feeling the insidious feeling of dread crawling up the back of her neck.

She looks over to Alex, who looks right back at her, eyes too big, and something that looks a lot like regret swirling inside of them, because she knows that they’re thinking the same thing.

That it’s not the jewel their client is after but this rare, and thought to be extinct Nebulaei.

Fuck, she thinks as she looks back inside of the cage. What the hell are they going to do now?


End file.
